There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History

Name: There Will Be Fire: Margaret Thatcher, the IRA, and Two Minutes That Changed History
Author: Rory Carroll
ISBN: 9780593419496

by Rory Carroll

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A Goodreads Choice Awards Nomination for Best History & Biography An NPR Book We Love A race-against-the-clock narrative that finally illuminates a history-changing event: the IRA’s attempt to assassinate Margaret Thatcher and the epic manhunt that followed. A bomb planted by the Irish Republican Army exploded at 2:54 a.m. on October 12, 1984. It was the last day of the Conservative Party Conference at the Grand Hotel in the coastal town of Brighton, England. Rooms were obliterated, dozens of people wounded, five killed. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in her suite when the explosion occurred; had she been just a few feet in another direction, flying tiles and masonry would have sliced her to ribbons. As it was, she survived—and history changed.…

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"There was no book harder to put down this year than this one. Rory Carroll makes it clear that this will not be a definitive history of the conflict in Ireland known as “The Troubles.” Instead, he focuses on the would-be assassins of The Iron Lady, the victims who weren’t so lucky, and the law enforcement officers who had the seemingly impossible task of finding the mysterious bomber. Carroll wrote this book after exhaustive interviews with those directly involved, and he makes it clear how much history would have changed if those two minutes had a different outcome."

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